


In Pieces

by allouette



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7124539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allouette/pseuds/allouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I trusted you</i>, he wants to say, just blurt it out right there without warning. It’s almost startling the way it just pops into his head out of nowhere, but he gets it now, that that’s what this whole thing is about: his fucked up trust issues.</p><p> </p><p>Or part three in what has turned into an unexpected little series. This is probably (maybe) the last one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Pieces

Connor has never been one to eavesdrop. He doesn’t care enough about other people’s business to actively go out of his way to listen in on what someone else might be saying at any given time. If it doesn’t involve him, he’s perfectly fine not knowing.

But when he’s walking through the E.D. one afternoon to check on the status of a patient and happens to hear the words _Will_ and _California_ come out of Natalie’s mouth, it’s enough to make him stop in his tracks because what?

The tablet in his hand provides the cover he needs to be standing around, but it’s just long enough to get the gist of it, anyway.

Will is thinking about moving to California?

That can’t be right, though. But it’s not like he can ask Natalie what the hell she’s talking about. Why would he want to know? Instead he grits his teeth and moves on because he’s got a job to do.

*** 

It sticks with him for the rest of his shift. He wonders if he heard wrong, misunderstood. If there’s something he just doesn’t know. 

Moving across the country is a big fucking deal. Will would tell him something like that. Surely.

And why did it have to be _Natalie_ , of all people? But of course it was her. Who else would it be?

It’s all rubbing him the wrong way, getting under his skin. He can’t remember the last time something has irritated him to this degree that didn’t involve his father. It makes the day drag on, and the longer it seems to lasts, the worse he feels.

He crosses paths with Will late in the afternoon at the door to the lounge. He needs coffee, thinks it might be his saving grace to get him through these last couple of hours, but Will is coming out just as he’s heading in, and there’s no avoiding him when they practically collide right there.

“Hey,” Will says with a warm smile.

Connor studies him for a minute. He looks good. Normal. Content. Not at all like he’s making a huge fucking life decision without Connor’s knowledge. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

“Uh…” Will’s brow furrows, his smile turning into a frown, and he shakes his head. “No? I don’t… What?”

Just then Dr. Choi pushes past them into the room, looks between them for a moment before heading to the coffee maker. Connor just clenches his hands into a tight fist, shakes his head as he turns to leave. “Forget it.”

***

By the time he’s in the locker room clearing out his things for the night, Connor is definitely pissed off. He’s trying not to be, has been trying all day, but fuck if it’s not working. He doesn’t even know who he’s pissed off at: Will? Natalie? Himself?

He didn’t do anything wrong, fuck that.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he’s about to leave when Will comes barreling in, all big smiles and bright eyes and Connor wants to punch him in his pretty face.

“Hey, I was hoping I’d catch you. Standing invite to Molly’s, a few are going. Wanna come with?” Will asks as he punches in the combination to his locker, shrugs out of his lab coat. 

“I’ll pass, thanks. Going home.”

“What’s going on with you?”

 _I trusted you_ , he wants to say, just blurt it out right there without warning. It’s almost startling the way it just pops into his head out of nowhere, but he gets it now, that that’s what this whole thing is about: his fucked up trust issues.

Instead Connor glances back over his shoulder toward the door; this is really the last place they should be talking about anything personal, private. Too many ears around every corner. Too many people that like to talk.

“Come over and you’ll find out,” he says, then makes his way out the door, not bothering to wait for Will’s response. 

*** 

The first thing he does when he gets home is head straight to the shower. He doesn’t even wait to see if Will followed him, figures Will can wait a few minutes, it won’t kill him. He needs to calm down, try to relax a little, clear his thoughts as much as possible.

The hot water helps ease tension in his muscles but he still has no idea what to say or do about Will. It’s either yes or no when it comes to California, and if it’s yes, then what? They’re done here. They aren’t serious enough for a long distance relationship. 

They aren’t serious enough for Will to even tell him about it in the first place.

They aren’t serious at all. They aren’t—What even _are_ they?

Connor ducks his head under the spray, lets the pounding water drown out the sound of his own thoughts.

***

“Why did you tell me to come over if you weren’t planning on answering the door?” Will asks.

When Connor opens the door to his condo after he’s finally out of the shower and dressed again, curious to see, there Will is, sitting in the hallway. It’s almost cute.

“It’s open now,” Connor replies and steps back. He almost wants to apologize for being this much of an dick, but he can’t find it in him right now. Not yet, anyway. Maybe later.

“What the hell, Connor?” Will asks after he steps inside, the door closed behind him.

“You tell me.”

Will throws his hands up, clearly confused, at a loss. “I have no idea what’s going on!”

“Tell me about California.”

Connor can see the realization as it slides across Will’s face, the exact moment of _oh_ , now he understands. “There isn’t a whole lot to tell right now. I applied for some jobs. I haven’t heard back yet but should soon. How do you know about that?”

“You’re asking me how I know about it and I’m wondering why I didn’t know, why I had to hear about it from _Natalie_ and not you.”

He doesn’t like the way he says Natalie’s name, the venom behind it; it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Will lets out a sigh, drags a hand through his hair. “Okay, I get why that would be annoying. I sent out those applications a while ago. When all of the stuff with my DNR patient was going on, when you and I sorta just… I didn’t think about mentioning it at the time. I didn’t know what you and I would end up being, if it would even matter.”

“And if you get offered one of those jobs? Then what?” Connor asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I don’t know. I applied for an attending position at Med, but Goodwin hates me. After all of the shit I’ve caused, she’s never going to give me an offer, Connor, come on. I’m stuck.”

Connor doesn’t even know what to say because Will has a good point, but god damn. He sinks down to sit on the couch and shakes his head – at himself, the whole situation in general, the fact that this is just his fucking luck.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Will says as he moves to take a seat next to Connor. “I know I should have, I—” He stops short when Connor shrugs away, pushes himself up to stand again. 

“We should probably talk about this now,” Connor says and he can barely look at Will blinking up at him. “Because I don’t think we should… anymore.” 

He doesn’t elaborate on the _this_ or the _should_ , thinks his meaning is quite clear. He already knows Will is going to ask him why, and he doesn’t even have a good reason other than hey, he’s being an asshole.

“What, why? Because of the off chance that I might get a job offer from California? Connor, that’s crazy.”

“Or maybe just because I said so.”

Yeah, definitely an asshole.

Will looks at him like Connor just punched him in the face for real this time, and it makes Connor’s stomach turn, the hurt he sees in Will’s eyes. 

“Oh,” is all Will says in response. “Got it.” And then he’s gone.

*** 

Downey keeps him busy in surgery, so Connor doesn’t get a whole lot of time to think about what happened. He doesn’t have to worry about running into Will, about hearing if any of his job offers have come through.

He tells himself he doesn’t give a shit. Truly.

Even if he feels a little sick to his stomach when a stray thought of what happened manages to push its way to the front of his mind.

Even if he misses Will a little bit when he’s sitting at home alone at night, staring at his phone. 

And then one day Downey becomes the patient, and Connor’s world gets rocked again.

It’s soul crushing to say the least, and it’s a test of all of Connor’s experience as a doctor, a surgeon, a test of his moral compass to have _this life_ in his hands. 

He doesn’t step foot outside of the hospital from the moment Downey is rolled in until he codes, spends hours looking at scans, reading through the novel that has become Downey’s file, sitting by his bed. 

He asks himself over and over and _over_ again what the right answer is. 

Who would know? Would Downey do it for him?

When all is said and done, and Downey finds his peace, Connor finally leaves the hospital with some personal time and the solace that yes, in the end, Downey would have given him anything he asked for, no questions asked.

*** 

Connor is sitting on the plane, just about to shut off his phone when he quickly scrolls through his contacts, presses his thumb to _Halstead_. Relief washes through him when it goes straight to voicemail and he hangs up without saying a word. He has no idea what he was going to say, anyway.

*** 

After spending two days at the beach and one horrifically long day nursing the worst hangover of his life, Connor gets back to Chicago with his heart still heavy. There are also the remnants of a headache still pulsing in his temples, dull yet nagging. He may be a doctor, but there are some things you just have to suffer through.

He wants to sleep, should probably eat something but there’s something else he has to do first, has been itching to do since the second his plane touched down. A couple of days reminiscing on the beach about life and death is apparently enough to put some things into perspective. 

Will’s phone goes straight to voicemail again, but this time Connor doesn’t hang up, waits for the tone to leave a brief, poorly worded message that he’s back in town, can they talk, please? He rolls his eyes at himself as he tosses his phone aside because ugh, that sounded a little too stupid for his comfort and toed the line at begging, but as he collapses onto the couch and gives in to the pull of sleep, his ability to care about a voicemail dissolves into nothing.

*** 

Connor has no idea how much time passes while he’s passed out, but it’s dark in his condo when an insistent knock on his door finally wakes him. It takes him a minute to reorient himself before he pushes himself up, scrubs his hands over his eyes, his face. He turns on a light as he heads to the door, and there stands Will in his scrubs, fresh from the hospital.

“Hey, were you sleeping?” Will asks, then realizes how dumb of a question it was when Connor just blinks at him. “Yeah, okay, sorry. You didn’t answer your phone so I just thought—Want me to leave?”

“No, it’s fine, come in.”

“So how’re you doing?” Will asks, shrugging out of his coat as Connor closes the door behind him.

“I’m… okay. Thanks for asking.”

“Good. Glad to hear it. I brought—” he says, holding up a six pack, “in case?”

Connor blanches and shakes his head a little, thinks he could probably still taste the vomit if he thought about it hard enough. “I’m good but feel free.” 

Will gets a bottle for himself, puts the rest away in the kitchen before they settle on the couch together, plenty of space between them. He doesn’t let the silence linger; Connor can tell he isn’t comfortable, not the way they used to be. 

“I’m very sorry about Downey – I just realized I didn’t get to tell you that before. That must’ve been really tough.”

With a nod, Connor drags a hand back through his hair, disheveled and altogether unkept. “It was, yeah,” he says, then looks over at Will. He wants to talk to him about Downey one day. Tell him everything. But not right now, not tonight. “But I’m the one that should be saying sorry to you. I treated you like shit and I have to apologize for that.”

“Connor, it’s… I mean, I accept your apology. You had your reasons for doing what you did, regardless of what they were.”

That’s just the thing, he doesn’t have a _good_ reason, not really. He was just pissed off and being a dick and decided to lash out, take it all out on Will in the worst possible way he could have. Connor tells him as much and Will cracks a smile, small and amused, like he expected nothing less, like Connor isn’t telling him any kind of brand new information.

Like he isn’t the one that got his feelings hurt in this whole ridiculous mess.

“Why are you smiling?” 

“I just… seeing you humbled like this. It’s new. Looks pretty good on you too, I gotta say.”

Connor gives Will a playful shove, cursing under his breath, but he’s sporting a small smile of his own now, has a little less weight on his shoulders. He was expecting Will to put up some kind of fight, to still be angry with him, he was _ready_ for that – to not have to face it feels like a gift.

“So are we trying this again?” Will asks slowly, a slight hesitation there in his question that’s impossible to hide.

“Do you want to?”

“I didn’t want to stop the first time. But… Can we give it a name this time? Because I just-I have this problem with caring. I tend to care a lot. Too much, most of the time, more than I should, and it usually comes back to bite me in the ass, so just warning you now that I—”

Connor shuts him up with a kiss, mouths pressed together, warm and lingering. “I care, too,” Connor murmurs softly when he eases back just enough, his forehead resting against Will’s, eyes closed.

*** 

Later, when they’re both sticky and sated, the sweat still cooling on their bodies, sleep is quick to start pulling them under. Connor is almost there, his breathing deep and even, his thoughts finally quiet.

Until Will’s voice cuts through the blissful silence.

“Hey, Connor?”

“Hm.”

“Are you gonna try to break up with me every time you’re in a bad mood?”


End file.
